At the mansion door, Tom gave a password (there wasn't one!) so why let him witness anything thereafter?
Basically weird rich Politician/Financier bastards screwing prossies but pretending to be satanic special cases?
There wasn't a "Second" password. That's how they were able to trap him into giving himself away after he had been identified.
shareI meant to say the 2nd time
So why not stop him THEN
I don´t follow.
shareHe was only asked for the password once at the door and no time after that. It wasn't until later that he was brought before Red Cloak and they already knew he wasn't supposed to be there that the fake "second password" was brought up in any capacity. By that point, they had already stopped him from seeing anything else and had him surrounded.
shareThere was only 1 password: FIDELIO
He used it twice for both "checkpoints"
?
the first password was correct, only after being let in, they realized he is not invited.
shareWe could ask Jeffrey Epstein how all this works but he's dead. Maybe Ghislaine Maxwell could offer insights to why the password system failed.
shareThe actual answer is that Dr Bill had to be publicly outed and fear-shamed in front of a group of anonymous, potentially powerful people, who know everything about you. He had to be scared shitless, in other words. If they turned the outsider away at the entrance, that would only embolden the outsider to investigate further. No, he had to be blackmailed into silence.
shareif we buy the scenario Ziegler describes later..
the mansion overlords wanted to toy with the outsider and stage an elaborate "sacrifice hoax" to fuck with him and scare him shitless.
that's one version. the other is the security nor partygoers could be 100% he didn't belong there until questioned.
You're to make sense out of this film?
shareThey may not have realized at first that he was not a member. That he took a taxi to the mansion caught their attention, but perhaps they wanted to investigate behind the scenes before staging their antic with him. Ziegler mentioned toward the end of the film that they had to "figure out" how Bill learned about the place to begin with. His arrival obviously caught them off guard.
Or . . . they flat out knew he wasn't supposed to be there because of the taxi and needed time to convene and come up with a plan to scare him and keep him quiet.
Really though, the orgy itself wasn't a big deal. Frat houses have worse on any given weekend. As much as people go on about implied pedophilia in this film, there were no underaged females present that we were shown. So not even ephebophilia was implied. But the fact that the very wealthy engaged in this behavior -- mostly married men in high profile jobs and positions -- along with their oddball rituals -- was enough to warrant keeping things under wraps.
Ziegler was probably telling the truth at the end of the film. That they didn't kill the sacrificial prostitute. If they were a death cult they probably would have just killed Bill that night, or soon thereafter.
I don't think they would have let him in if they knew from the beginning that he wasn't supposed to be there - would have saved themselves a whole lot of trouble to simply stop him right away. Seems like he had enough time to get in because he knew the password, but they quickly sniffed him out because of the taxi and relayed the info. Sounds probable enough to me.
shareAgreed. That is what I think happened. The only alternative is that they knew (via the taxi) that he was an intruder, but wanted to get him inside so they could take a better look at him and scare him into silence.
There is an alternative scenario . . .
Later we see that there is a security camera on the front gate. So imagine, the night of the party the security guard sees the taxi pull up, sees Bill, know he's not supposed to be there, then has the conversation "who is this? do we lock him out or do we let him in so that we have time to investigate who he is and then scare him into silence?"
I can see the later as a distinct possibility. But like I said, I agree with you that they probably weren't sure.
Ziegler was probably telling the truth at the end of the film. That they didn't kill the sacrificial prostitute.
What we see in the film is what we see. And of course not everyone sees the same thing. I think the point of his buddy's situation, the woman "sacrifice," and other situations presented in the film is that it's meant to be ambiguous.
I once was convinced that his buddy met his doom, as well as the girl at the party, but eventually came to change my mind. Not by being persuaded but just because . . . . who knows? Over time I sometimes see things differently.
So now I ask myself questions like "why would they kill his buddy when that would lead to an investigation and needlessly complicate things?" A smack on the face would get the message across just fine -- and that's all that probably happened.
And as I alluded to before, if they were so free to kill a woman at the party, not to mention the pianist, why not just kill Bill? He was their problem, so to speak.
But, you could be correct, perhaps that is what Kubrick intended us to think. We'll probably never know for sure.
So now I ask myself questions like "why would they kill his buddy when that would lead to an investigation and needlessly complicate things?" A smack on the face would get the message across just fine -- and that's all that probably happened.
And as I alluded to before, if they were so free to kill a woman at the party and the pianist, why not just kill Bill? He was their problem, so to speak.
"Think about it, how did he know the door was locked from inside? If that was random OD he read from the news, how would he know such details?"
The police report. The people in the mansion were men of power. They surely had access to that information one way or the other. For all we know the Chief of Police was a member and in attendance that night.
"Bill was a friend, a discreet doctor is always valuable, as long as they can convince him to shut up, there is no need, especially he was "redeemed". They do have rules."
Bill was a friend of the doctor, true, but there were a lot of members in that group. It would be what the majority decided I expect, the weight of decision would be in their favor, not that of one member and their preference to what happens to their buddy. The cult would worry about it's own being and if they decided Bill's death would best protect everyone involved then I imagine that's what they would go with.
As far as his being "redeemed" that is if you buy into whether or not the play acting was real or not. It was explained at the end that it wasn't, but of course it's still debated to this day if we can trust that particular explanation by that particular character or not.
The police report. The people in the mansion were men of power. They surely had access to that information one way or the other. For all we know the Chief of Police was a member and in attendance that night.
Sorry about that.
I'm not sure that Ziegler would "need to know" . . . it's just something that became known to the group, then by extension, to Ziegler.
Besides, it did have SOMETHING to do with them in the sense that she was a paid member that participated in highly secretive (and bizarre) gathering with some of the most powerful players around. Her absence meant something to them, if nothing else than inform them that they lost a participant and that she would need to be replaced. I'm guessing since they trust every attendee to keep their mouth shut they would need to keep tabs on everyone. So her absence would demand their attention.
As I said there may have been people in the group that served (or ran) the police department. If that were the case (not arguing that it is -- mere speculation of course) then they would know the girl and report back to the group, or at least word would get around within the group.
Let's see . . how else would they know . . . they surely would have found out about her death by asking questions once the death appeared in the newspaper. With the power connections surely held within that group I doubt that there is much of any information out in the world not within their grasp.
So she was there hours ago telling Cruise the "grave danger", then she redeemed Cruise. Hours later she was dead.
And that was all just coincidence, you just buy that?
I think Ziegler telling him that is a discreet way of saying they have the police, there was an implicit threat.
"Life goes on, until it doesn't".
"And that was all just coincidence, you just buy that?"
Probably. I think that her death -- as with other things in the film -- is that it's left deliberately ambiguous and uncertain.
The beginning of the film set up her situation: She'd almost killed herself at Ziegler's party doing the exact same thing it was said that she did when found dead later in her apartment. So it was something of a coincidence, I guess, but I could also argue it was to be expected. Not a matter of if, but when. The "when" just happened to be hours later after she told Bill that he was in grave danger.
I remember when I first saw this film years ago, then watched it again a couple of times, trying to sort these things out. I landed on the tentative conclusion that Ziegler was telling the truth at the end of the film. That the apparent sacrifice was just one more example of things not turning out how they first appeared -- as occurs throughout the film -- and that plays heavily in my interpretation.
The beginning of the film set up her situation: She'd almost killed herself at Ziegler's party
I landed on the tentative conclusion that Ziegler was telling the truth at the end of the film.
I did some further digging, the women ODed at Ziegler's party was Mandy, played by Julienne Davis.
The one redeemed Cruise and dead after was Amanda Curran as shown on the newspaper, played by Abigail Good, so definitely a different woman.
Then that would definitely be an indication that Ziegler was lying and definitely affect the interpretation of the film.
But I suppose that raises another question: Why explain to Bill that it was all a show when it defeats the very purpose of why they did it to begin with? I know Bill kept digging, but again, the group had already threatened his family -- twice -- and if they were serious they'd have taken him out I would imagine.
Perhaps then, they decided that the threats didn't work so maybe the Ziegler approach was the next try. And as you suggest, maybe consideration was given because Bill was a friend. Though I suspect it would probably more along the lines that he knew Bill, was comfortable and familiar with Bill, and could have that talk, rather than out of mere friendship alone.
As for your previous comment, I'd have to go back and watch the film again, I don't recall that Bill definitively caught Ziegler lying, I remember he pressed him at one point if the dead girl was the same one at the party, to which Ziegler replied "yes." If it wasn't the same girl, why say that it was? It would be easier just to say it wasn't the same girl, then go back and reiterate that the girl of the party was not killed.
Bill handed Ziegler a piece of newspaper, which showed a former beauty queen ODed at a hotel, the print was clear enough to show her name, which was the woman he saw at the morgue.
There were further details of her on the paper, about she was hoping to be an actress, recently met some important people according to her sister.
Ziegler then admitted that was indeed the woman at the party since Bill already did his homework (before that he said the woman was just a hooker they hired).
It’s weird that we’re asked to believe that Mandy is ‘redeemer’. Mandy is physically much chunkier and more of a bimbo. Redeemer is waif-thin and svelte, and more elegant.
Presumably this is Kubro fucking with us again and blurring the lines between reality and dream.
Not really, their names are different, Bill asked Mandy's name at the beginning.
When Bill went to the hospital, he gave a different name to the hospital receptionist.
But it is quite easy to confuse the 2, since they are not main characters.
Didn’t he give the name ‘Amanda Curran’ at the hospital?
And that is definitely not Mandy.
shareMandy is short for Amanda, so it is Mandy.
shareAll right, you got me there.
But actresses played them are 2 different actresses.
Yeah, that’s my point:
https://moviechat.org/tt0120663/Eyes-Wide-Shut/5e8f28c431f80d18c9555761/Why-let-Tom-in-the-mansion-at-all?reply=662c87f7e964665af1d01559
And that is where we disagree.
I don't think Kubrick did it on purpose. Those 2 girls are not exactly twins.
I think Kubrick did that on purpose to create yet more ambiguity.
The girl who died doesn’t resemble the girl who supposedly sacrificed herself to save Bill, but instead appears to be Mandy from earlier in the film. More bizarre doubling to leave the viewer suspended in uncertainty.